{"id":1835,"date":"2026-04-14T08:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T12:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/?page_id=1835"},"modified":"2026-04-14T08:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T12:50:13","slug":"how-to-buy-a-democracy-are-the-supreme-court-ethics-scandals-undermining-election-integrity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/in-print\/volume-38-issue-4-fall-2025\/how-to-buy-a-democracy-are-the-supreme-court-ethics-scandals-undermining-election-integrity\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Buy a Democracy: Are the Supreme Court Ethics Scandals Undermining Election Integrity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the past year, the Supreme Court has been rocked with allegations of improper conduct, partisan influence, and corruption. Justices Thomas and Alito have made headlines for taking massive gifts and trips worth millions of dollars from individuals with strong partisan views of how the country should look, without disclosing said gifts or recusing themselves from cases that may implicate the donors.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> New information surfaced about the Justices\u2019 political beliefs, raising concerns that they may be unable to be impartial while hearing highly contentious cases involving political actors.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Amidst this controversy, the Supreme Court has been deciding cases in which former and current President Donald Trump is embroiled. These cases had ramifications for the 2024 election, particularly an immunity decision delaying prosecution of Trump until after the election.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> However, these cases are just the latest in a line of decisions over the past 20 years that have shaped the most recent presidential election and our democracy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This note will argue that the juxtaposition of the Supreme Court scandals and the election could create the appearance of impropriety, violating Canon 2 of the code of conduct the justices imposed upon themselves. Part I will examine the recent history of Supreme Court election jurisprudence, noting the influence of partisanship and the consequences for the 2024 election. Part II will discuss the ethics violations of the current members of the Supreme Court and the impact of perceived improprieties on the Court\u2019s legitimacy following the election. Finally, Part III will analyze solutions that have been proposed to deal the ethics and legitimacy challenges facing the Supreme Court, with an eye to what will best protect U.S. democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2026\/04\/GT-GJLE250069.pdf\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past year, the Supreme Court has been rocked with allegations of improper conduct, partisan influence, and corruption. Justices Thomas and Alito have made headlines for taking massive gifts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14207,"featured_media":0,"parent":1755,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1835","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1837,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1835\/revisions\/1837"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/legal-ethics-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}